


Riders On Pale Horses Are We

by tisonlyaname



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Magical Realism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-25
Updated: 2013-04-29
Packaged: 2017-12-09 11:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/773689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisonlyaname/pseuds/tisonlyaname
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a gray ghost.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kink meme prompt: _Something incorporating Hannibal as, say, Famine? And Freddie could be War. Idk, anything involving the Horsemen mythos, is what I'm saying._
> 
> Comments and critiques greatly appreciated.

There is a gray ghost.

She’s on a gray hill.

Through a gray, gray morning she goes -- crawling, crying, calling out. She’s lonely in the dawn.

She is, was, young: not yet a woman in her gingham gown, bare-kneed and a crooked mouth, brown hair fine as starlight now. Her color is gone. 

So is her body.

It’s buried in the ground, a ragged scatter of bones and ash. The veins were burned; the heart was not. It was instead cut out. 

She’s searching for it now, pulling herself across summer-scorched earth, shedding smoke against the weeds. She sobs; she shimmers; she coils tight with every breeze and tries not to disappear. A Minnesota wind could undo her.

She is Elise Nichols. She is afraid.

Hannibal--that is his name in this life, this century. There have been others; there will be many more--is merely curious. He watches her from below, listens to her broken breaths. She remembers the need for air, the way her lungs would rise and fill. The carbon is too heavy for her now, though. She can’t swallow it down. 

She’s suffocating.

He’s fascinated.

Until--

Until--

She starts to scream.

Loud. Loud. Loud.

_That... is most unwelcome._

Ghosts are not sensible creatures. They are instead nerves and sensory, devastated by their own memories, by the fates they thought they’d have.

Elise is no exception. 

She collapses on the hill, curls small above her grave, where the dirt is still warm and the shadows haven’t yet returned. She shivers, opaque in her grieving, and then--

She begins to _wail_. 

Loud. Loud. Loud.

The sound splinters through the day. Flowers bend; an old oak sways; and county lines twist in the distance, their borders rewritten, changed. Her misery is a tangible thing.

It’s going to be messy.

Hannibal hates messy.

And so he steps forward, climbing up the hill, frowning at the way it shudders and shakes beneath him. There is a natural order to this world (and the ones that follow). It’s now being stripped away, carelessly transformed, and that-- 

That will not do. 

He won’t allow it.

He arrives finally at the peak, where sky meets dust, and finds her weeping. She doesn’t notice him. It’s insulting.

He doesn’t like to be insulted.

“How naughty of you, Miss Elise,” he begins, “to have company and not even realize it.” The words are steady.

They still startle her, make her stumble to her knees, open-mouthed and vapor-cheeked. 

She was a pretty girl once. Now she’s little more than steam.

He wonders how she’d taste.

He thinks it would be sweet -- especially as she glows against the ground, beacon-bright in her fear. 

“Who-- Who are you?” she cries. 

“Just someone passing by,” he answers. This is not quite a truth and not entirely a lie. He could sense the fire in her body, the blood that was left behind. She died violently; she smelled divine. “I heard you screaming and thought I should intervene. You were causing quite the stir, after all. It was enough to wake the dead... or perhaps rouse the living. Neither option is appealing.”

“I don’t-- What? What do you mean? Who are you? What’s happened to me?”

She’s confused. She’s hurting. Her scent is cherry-ripe.

Hannibal licks his lips. 

She just trembles, gasps, “What’s happening?”

“I suppose this _is_ quite perplexing," he drawls. "Murder usually is.” He gives an elegant shrug. “Children are natural poltergeists, Miss Elise. You all respond so... dramatically to your predicaments. Every feeling is amplified. Every thought becomes a haunted home. You all rail against the world, trying to convince yourselves that you still belong, that you’re still somehow important. The truth, of course, is that you never were, but I doubt you'll find that comforting.”

“I don’t-- What?” She flickers once, twice, distressed. “ _What_?”

“It’s no matter, my dear. We have other things to discuss. Such as your current... theatrics.” He wags a finger at her. “Very bad, Miss Elise. Very bad indeed. You’re making quite the fuss. And I’m afraid I can’t let you continue. Not here. Not where anyone could see.”

“What are talking about? I don’t-- I don’t understand.” She fumbles to her feet, hair tangled, hands stretched wide. “Who are you? What’s happening to me?” Her voice cracks, demanding, and a tremor splits the ground, opens it up.

Hannibal does not approve. The hill, after all, is as ancient as he is. It doesn't deserve this indignity. 

_Such a rude little girl... Now what’s to be done?_

He _knows_.

“Those are very important questions,” he murmurs, brow quirking. “ _Very_ important. Which is why I intend to give them a proper answer.”

And he waits for no reply. Instead he starts to _shift_ \-- body no longer a human facade, the careful angles and plaid armor. The glamour breaks, reveals the creature underneath. He is an old breed, with brimstone bones and sharp, sharp teeth. Stitches weave through his skin, keeping the patchwork pieces--little slivers and shanks he’s collected from men, all sliced neatly and sewn onto him--together. His nails are long and his smile is grim. 

“I am known by many names,” he says, looming above her and indulging in the panic. It's nectar-heavy. “But you may call me Famine.”

Her scream is delicious. He wants to breathe it in.

And it’s been so long since he’s eaten...

He reaches for her then, hand blurring to a raven’s wing, jaw opening. There’s a world inside his belly, its borders shaped by blood, ever-changing, ever-growing. Elise will keep them strong. 

_Just a taste. Just a touch. Just a--_

He’s suddenly wrenched away, goes tumbling down the hill -- rolling, rolling, stopping only when he meets the muddy base. Dirt smears against his favorite coat. This is unfortunate. 

It’s also forgotten, however, as he looks up.... and sees Death shuffling toward him. 

_Well, well. This is unexpected_.

Death--or perhaps it’s still William, a name chosen ages ago, whispered like a secret--is a moon-faced boy, with messy curls and a sad mouth. Hounds pace at his feet, chase the shadows that bound like stags beneath him. His skin is soft as calla-lilies, but his eyes are gone. They’ve been gouged out, slender fingers reaching in and clawing, clawing, clawing. 

Death did this to himself, Hannibal knows, just as he’s done it before. He sees too much; he knows too much; and the only relief he finds is an empty stare, a splintered skull. He plucks out the irises, peels away the nerves, spares himself the _red_ that follows him home.

The reprieve isn’t permanent, though. His sight always returns. 

And Hannibal--

Hannibal is glad. 

Because Death has the prettiest eyes of any century and he’s always loved pretty things.

He’s always loved...

“Hello, Will.”


	2. Chapter 2

There are no mirrors in the Underneath.

There were, once, in the beginning -- forests carved from reflections, prism trees with looking-glass leaves. They sprawled out for miles in white, white rows. There were secrets in their branches; there were stories in the stems; and screams came pouring out of them, spilling like lace. 

It was every human sadness. It was every human pain. It was every sobbing, wailing, dying _thing_.

And Will--

Will couldn’t bear the sound. He couldn't bear the weight.

So he broke the mirrors.

It took centuries. He marched through the groves and shattered every tree, hefted his scythe again and again until they were nothing more than dust. And then he razed the ground, burned it with shadows and salt and nightshade. The roots were poisoned. They turned black beneath the moon.

And the silence that followed was glorious.

Until it was no more. 

Until it was _gone_.

Because his eyes became glass then, with horrors etched inside. There was suddenly a world within his mind.

Will tried to break _that_ too, carved out the splinters, made himself hollow. He wanted quiet, quiet, quiet. Such a small thing to ask, he thought. Such a meager wish.

The wounds festered, though -- scabbed and stretched and bubbled back to life. His eyes returned.

That was eons ago. 

And nothing has changed.

He still sits on a stag-horn throne, a blade always in his hand, slicing at the nerves as they begin to grow, scratching at the lenses. Every cut is a martyr. It hurts. It _does_.

And sometimes it’s too much. Sometimes it’s too sharp.

He cries.

And then his dogs come forward, curling close to lick the blood, whining comforts. They are the companions he’s chosen (pets poorly loved in past lives, adored by him in this one) and the reapers he needs.

He sends them out to collect souls, to guide the dead to Heaven or Hell or the gray Middle between. They are sweet hounds, with soft eyes and softer howls. He taught them to be kind, just as he taught himself.

But now--

Now he doesn’t feel _kind_.

Instead he’s frustrated, staring at a creature he can’t quite see. Famine-- _Hannibal_ , he corrects. _He’s now called Hannibal. The conquerer of all things_ \--is kneeling before him, a phantom, a memory. Will can sense his movements. They’re betrayed by the rustle of a coat, the slow drag of a breath. This is, he thinks, a courtesy. 

Because Hannibal can be still as a grave if he chooses to be. 

If he wants to be.

But now--

“I have imagined our reunion many times,” he says, loud as he stands, stirring the weeds. “I will admit, however, that none of my imaginings ended quite this way.”

“And what way is that?” Will bristles. “With me having to defend one of my own from you?” He shakes his head, feels the rattle of glass inside his cheek. He missed a piece. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Now, now,” Hannibal murmurs, amusement a delicate, dangerous thing, “that’s hardly accurate, given that _here_ is my domain. This world belongs to me, William. It’s fair game.”

“Elise Nichols is no longer of this world!” She is a shade, a victim -- and one of his hounds is already taking her away. He can hear a distant bark, the opening of a Gate. She will soon be judged. With compassion, he prays. There should be mercy for the dead... if only because there’s none for the living. “She belongs to me.”

“Odd. You were never one to stake claims.”

“I never had to,” he replies. “No one ever tried to _eat_ one of them.”

And he is so very angry and so very tired and--

“My dear boy,” drawls Hannibal, “how else could I get your attention?”

And that--

That--

It’s a deception, however freely given. Hannibal offers promises as easy as he devours sin. He teases and charms and turns touches into preludes. He laughs too gently and stands too close, just so he can swallow down Will’s stuttering, shuddering words. It’s a lie. It’s an illusion.

It’s... wanted.

Because theirs is a history ancient, shaped by Famine’s endless hunger and his own timid hope. They have been watching the world since it began, never eye to eye but sometimes soul to soul.

And Will--

Will has missed that.

If only because there’s no one else to offer it. 

His other siblings (War with her red curls and words flung like weapons, spearing men with scandals and feasting on their guilt; Pestilence with her blue eyes and cloying touch, a healer’s smile hiding rotten teeth) always leave. They call him little brother, little fiend. 

They hate him.

But Famine--

Famine--

 _Hannibal_ doesn't.

Instead he listens. Instead he stays. Instead he talks of the past and the present and the future, as if they're all the same, as if they're worth something.

The fury Will was feeling slowly dies. 

And when a hand brushes his face he doesn’t startle. Instead he breathes.

_Please. Please. Please._

“How long has it been?” asks Hannibal, tracing empty sockets, pressing against open veins and wet skin.

“I don’t-- I don’t know.” This is less a lie and more a desperation. He remembers everything, the seconds always shifting in his skull. He can recall their last day, their last moment, the press of lips to his. He doesn’t confess this, though. He just trembles.

“Am I truly that forgettable?” Hannibal clicks his tongue, tender in his mockery. “I’ll have to rectify that immediately.” 

“You don’t _have_ to do anything.”

Unless--

Unless---

_Please?_

“Oh, but I do.” Air drifts across his mouth then, smoke-fine. “How I’ve missed you, Will.”

The sound that escapes him is harsh. He can’t keep it in. “You’re mocking me,” he mutters -- because there is no greater villain than Death, because there is no greater tragedy than _him_. He is not a God among men. He is just a demon, just a thief, just a pale boy on a pale steed. “You’re making fun of me.”

Hannibal grins against his cheek and there is a hint of teeth.

“ _Never_.” 

And that... 

That sounds almost like a truth.

It sounds almost like a joy.

And the kiss that follows is a careful, careful gift.

_Please._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Casting Freddie as War was a call-back to the original kink meme prompt. Alana, I'm afraid, became Pestilence by default.
> 
> Comments and critiques are, of course, appreciated.


End file.
